Meet Random Acts of Flowers Queen of Green, Sarah Cronan

Meet RAF’s Queen of Green, Sarah Cronan

Headshot by Crystal Martin

This week, Random Acts of Flowers’ National Director of Finance and Administration Sarah Cronan, is more than 1,000 miles away from our National Headquarters, attending the 2017 Perennial Plant Association Symposium in Denver, Colorado. Because – while Sarah is the Queen of fiscal Green for our organization – her other passion is gardening, which makes her and RAF a perfect match!

Sarah’s interest in gardening stems from her childhood visiting her grandparents who lived on farms, growing their own vegetables and flowers. She loved to visit them, picking flowers and enjoying the fresh veggies. This interest became a passion as she got older, and is now a defining part of her life. Having spent her pre-RAF career in a series of intense – and sometimes stressful jobs – Sarah finds her garden a therapeutic and comforting place.

“Whenever I travel, wherever I go, I love to seek out people with an interest in plants and check out nurseries. I’m always on the lookout for unusual things that I can’t get in my local garden center.
I love plants!”

Sarah returned to the working world at the beginning of 2017 after having spent several years with her garden as her full-time job. When RAF COO/CMO Cindy McConkey Cox (with whom Sarah worked at Scripps Networks Interactive) reached out to her about joining the RAF team, Sarah was “ready to get back to business. And, I wanted something tied to the horticulture industry in some way, so Random Acts of Flowers was absolutely perfect.”

“I love flowers. I love growing flowers, but I also love cutting flowers. I cut flowers from my own yard to enjoy in my house. And, the mission of RAF is incredible, and – as someone who is so involved with plants – I fully understand the positive impact that being around flowers and plants can have on someone’s life.”

From managing the fiscal green at the RAF office to cultivating the floral green at her home garden, Sarah wears her Queen of Green crown beautifully!

After Sarah’s garden appeared in an article in the Knoxville News-Sentinel, a local garden club reached out to see if the club could pay a visit. So earlier this year, the club visited Sarah’s home to see the wide variety of plants she cultivates on about two acres of land in West Knoxville.